The rain came yesterday. I can't remember when it last rained around here - not that it's like the Sahara or anything but it's been dry for weeks now. So when it came, it was largely unexpected - and unexpected means unprepared and now I smell like wet dog. That's OK. It's mostly quite a homely smell that I've gotten used to over the years - but you didn't tune in to hear about that. Last week, some weird shit happened.
I've been planning out my next tattoo session for a while now but being out in the U.S. and among the mighty, I found myself making a small adjustment to the plan. It kind of went like this: I had a few quiet moments to myself so I went outside and took a seat in the corner to gather my thoughts with a coffee. Those thoughts turned to the ravens that already live on me and where I was going to go next with it. I looked up to find the biggest damn raven I have ever seen sitting on a fence post not three feet away from me. Slipping out my camera, I hoped to rattle off a few shots at a reasonably close range before he got tired of me and either a) flew away or b) tried to steal it from me to see if it was edible. Truth be told, it didn't seem to bother him at all. It's a pretty cool moment. I like things like that.
Satisfied with my photographic swag, I head back in to catch up with Noon - which I do, only to find he's started work on his next client but he finds the time to point to the booth next to him and tells me to check out his friends portfolio. I flip the cover and what do I find but the most beautiful tattoos of birds. Big birds. Gene comes back to his booth (for it is he) and we get to talking and before you know it, the deal is struck, the design in motion and the time loosely nailed down for a weekend when we are both free.
You don't have to believe in any Gods or be spiritual in any way, shape or form to see that sometimes, magic just happens because you make space for it to happen. I really believe that. Stop for just a few moments to let the world turn. You'd be surprised what can come out of it.
Here's the beast himself being as we were talking about him:
There's a whole bank of close-ups of this big guy. This particular one I hit with the grunge effect on some new app I'd downloaded, but there's some great source material and I'm really looking forward to getting it on. I can wait though. Let's do this thing right.
That said, some things have waited long enough. Raised on Radio comes under that heading - so, as I have a good deal of time off in November, it's time to start collating and editing (and in some cases, just plain start) what will become the next book. In fact, if I can get my head together enough and plan and work far enough in advance with the day job, I might also to be able to make a good start on Almost Human. Maybe even enough to get a first draft run out to see what it looks like. That would really be something - the three books planned for 2012 actually making it out as planned.
I watched some video clip of Dean Koontz being interviewed on a news show yesterday. He sure has a strange way of writing. From what I can gather here, he writes a page a day and then rewrites that page 20 - 30 times and then the next day, starts all over again. While that might seem to be a long winded way of doing things (and my first reaction was 'how lazy can you get') it sure gets the job done. The man has written a ton of books and when I dug a little deeper, I see that he even outsells Stephen King. That's no mean feat - we're talking something like 450 million books. The last Koontz book I read was Odd Thomas which was pretty good - I might check back in and continue with the series. I'm almost inspired to try and write like that myself - you could certainly have more than one book on the desk at any one time. Maybe I'll give it a trial run for a week or so and see how it pans out.
And talking of Stephen King - he has a new book out in the spring of next year. A little different from normal perhaps as it's a contribution to the Hard Case Crime series. I've always really loved those old pulp style covers (which is one good thing about everything from the past coming back to haunt us) and this one is a peach:
There's some more info about the book here. Count me in. I know King doesn't write in the same way as Koontz but even he suggests the same kind of routine. Maybe I should embrace it - simply some kind of routine in which you chip away at the very large stone. I think I'm going to try out a few different things between now and Christmas and log them here. If you give a damn about such things, the tab will be Mr Smith On Writing. I'll try and make them posts that don't mention anything else so that the trail of clues will eventually lead to something worthwhile...
And to wrap up today? You can check out this movie short from the hands of Mathieu Ratthe called Lovefield.